aWoD: Continued

[Username17]

The Nosferatu (Wilds), Troglodytes (Gloom), and Wererats (Limbo) do have a nice sort of symmetry. I guess we've just got to make sure that they don't overlap too much. After all, Nosferatu probably look something like...

[*]Body Weaponry
[*]Heightened senses
[*]Vigor
[*]Blood Bondage
[*]Summon Swarm (bats)
[*]Hide from Notice

and possibly...
[*]Bat form
[*]Pest Control


Wererats also probably have heightened senses, rat form, rat hybrid form, pest control, and maybe hide from notice.

That's an interesting idea. I had pegged the other vampires as being saddled with pretty much the same WoD vampire powers. So the Ventrue would look like this:

• Vigor (Basic Potence)
• Aura Perception (Basic Auspex)
• Blood Bondage (Basic Path of Blood)
• Command (Basic Dominate)
• Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
• Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
• Restoration (Intermediate Fortitude)
• Indomitably (Intermediate Fortitude)

And the Nosferatu would look like this:

• Vigor (Basic Potence)
• Feral Whispers (Basic Animalism)
• Blood Bondage (Basic Path of Blood)
• Hide From Notice (Basic Obfuscate)
• Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
• Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
• Restoration (Intermediate Fortitude)
• Indomitably (Intermediate Fortitude)

The idea being that being a vampire at all lets you go into torpor instead of dying, lets you spend power to strengthen yourself for a scene, lets you make people into your bitches with blood addiction, and lets you ignore wound penalties and heal yourself. In this minimalist approach, not many things actually change from one type of vampire to another before you start buying your optionals.

A Nosferatu can speak to rats and pass invisibly by people, a Ventrue can see peoples' true selves and hypnotize people, and a Daeva can charm crowds and walk through flames unmolested. But the whole deal where they cannot be killed because they have already died is static throughout all three.

I expect that Lycanthropes also would have a lot of overlap. I mean, every single one of them is going to have Beast Form in their Protean slot. All of them are going to have Quickness as well.

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

I like that idea Frank. The abilities that are static between Types of supernaturals, are actually generic abilities that they are given/have to take.

As such, the abilities won't have to be written over and over again, instead the players refer to a main list of abilities to know what any Supernatural with Indomitably and Restoration are like. It also means that only a few adjectives are needed to represent the same ability among any character.

[Username17]

Question: is this too circular?

The Get of Fenris
The better to eat you with, my dear.
Werewolves have a Dianic power source.

• Vigor (Basic Potence)
• Beast Form (Basic Protean)
• Body Weaponry (Basic Protean)
• Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
• Quickness (Basic Celerity)
• Feral Whispers (Basic Animalism)
• War Form (Intermediate Protean)
• The Beckoning (Intermediate Animalism)

The Nezumi: Plague on the world of Men
“Tear him up.”
Nezumi have an Infernal power source.

• Abyss of the Body (Basic Descent of Entropy)
• Beast Form (Basic Protean)
• Body Weaponry (Basic Protean)
• Hide From Notice (Basic Obfuscate)
• Quickness (Basic Celerity)
• Feral Whispers (Basic Animalism)
• Vanish From the Mind's Eye (Intermediate Obfuscate)
• The Beckoning (Intermediate Animalism)

The Bagheera: The Lady or the Tiger
“You can fool everybody, but landie. Dearie me, you can't fool a cat. They seem to know who's not right.”
Bagheera have a Death power source.

• Vigor (Basic Potence)
• Beast Form (Basic Protean)
• Body Weaponry (Basic Protean)
• Hide From Notice (Basic Obfuscate)
• Quickness (Basic Celerity)
• Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
• War Form (Intermediate Protean)
• Alacrity (Intermediate Celerity)

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

It might be worth having entries like
lycanthrope traits:
[*] Beast Form (Basic Protean)
[*] Body Weaponry (Basic Protean)
[*] Quickness (Basic Celerity)

This will reduce the number of abilities each specific type gets to 5, which makes chunking much easier. It's also just less of a 'wall of text'--that many abilities by default might look intimidating to a starting player.

Also, I'm wondering what exactly War Form and Beast Form do. At the moment I'm assuming that beast form is a normal (though possibly abnormally large) animal while the war form is humanoid, which leads me to wonder what the difference is between Body Weaponry and Beast Form is.

[Prak]

I would imagine that, yes, beast form is a normal-ish animal, while war form is a towering hybrid of muscle and weapon. I would imagine body weaponry would be the ability to pop claws or fangs while still looking perfectly human otherwise. I could also see body weaponry being used for other random stuff like a wererat "learning" how to produce quills from a porcupine (from the Wilds, or whatever).

[Username17]

Body Weaponry = Wolf Claws / Body Weaponry
Beast Form = Wildshape
War Form = Crinos / Horrid Form

And yeah, those have been dropped by a tier across the board. Because turning into a dog is cool, but it's not inherently superior to other basic disciplines like Hide From Notice and Mesmerism.

This will reduce the number of abilities each specific type gets to 5, which makes chunking much easier. It's also just less of a 'wall of text'--that many abilities by default might look intimidating to a starting player.

I considered that, and even wrote it up that way. But honestly it seems to cause more harm than good. Having to look in more than one place to find out what your preselected powers are is bad.

-Username17

[Orion]

I'm pretty sure it's okay as long as both lists are literally on the same page. Format would be

Vampires

"fluff"

Power list

Ventrue

Fluff

Power List

Daeva

etc.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Body Weaponry = Wolf Claws / Body Weaponry
Beast Form = Wildshape
War Form = Crinos / Horrid Form

And yeah, those have been dropped by a tier across the board. Because turning into a dog is cool, but it's not inherently superior to other basic disciplines like Hide From Notice and Mesmerism.

Ok, so I get that a weretiger has the choice of extending its claws while looking completely human, extending its claws while looking like a humanoid tiger, extending its claws while extending its claws while looking like a humanoid tiger. I just don't see why the distinction is useful for lycanthropes.

This also makes me wonder whether abilities like Beast Form and War Form can be stacked like polymorph/wild shape. I assume not, and that this is OK because one builds on the other. The aforementioned tiger with "body weaponry", however, is not as clear of a case.

This will reduce the number of abilities each specific type gets to 5, which makes chunking much easier. It's also just less of a 'wall of text'--that many abilities by default might look intimidating to a starting player.

I considered that, and even wrote it up that way. But honestly it seems to cause more harm than good. Having to look in more than one place to find out what your preselected powers are is bad.

I also considered the diffuse information issue, and I think that even repeating the lycanthrope traits in all three entries is easier to deal with than all of the abilities interleaved. This isn't theoretical; when I first saw the lists my reaction was 'Ugh, wall of text' even though it's only 8 items. It became easier to think about when I determined what the common skills are (which is important and not immediately obvious).
Maybe my concentration is pathetic, but it's still often good to pander to the LCD.

[Username17]

Since the big point of Body Weaponry is that you do magic damage with your claws, having it and War Form together is clear synergy - since you'll be wanting to use your claws a lot more when you're a four meter tall wolfoid.

Anyway, I don't see how it would be reasonably possible or desirable to split out the disciplines that you get preselected that you would also get preselected if you were a different creature type. However, there is a profound difference between a discipline where you get one copy of a basic and a discipline where you get two (like: it's a place where one of your fixed basic disciplines can be spent. So what if we split them up based on that? Would it seem more manageable if it was written like this:

---

Frankensteins: The Creature
“My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.”

Frankensteins are crafted to be literally new living things. They are essentially people, albeit designed rather than evolved. Unfortunately, the creators of these new creatures almost never take to their assumed role as parent, because the Frankenstein is never truly a baby and never truly a human. Propelled into existence with a grown human's size and facilities, they nonetheless suffer from having missed the opportunities to be juvenile.

Like a man who has been inducted as a child soldier or a woman married at first blood, a Frankenstein's life will always have deeply painful emotional issues. They will always be childlike in some aspects of their existence, even if they live to be hundreds of years old.

A Frankenstein has a Death power source and a Continuous power schedule.

• Vigor (Basic Potence)
• Feat of Strength (Basic Potence)
• Nimble Feet (Basic Celerity)
• Dread Gaze (Basic Presence)
• Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
• Heightened Senses (Basic Auspex)
• Devastation (Intermediate Potence)
• Quicken Sight (Intermediate Celerity)

Story Inspiration: Frankenstein, Pinocchio, Edward Scissorhands, Subject Two, Herbert West: Reanimator

-Username17

[Judging__Eagle]

Yes. Make sub-lists within each racial entry; don't make a "Race" entry, then each sub-type getting their own "specific" entry, since it will bring up the afromentioned "having to look in more than one place" problem.

You could even have the sub-headings of

Promethean Powers
# Vigor (Basic Potence)
# Feat of Strength (Basic Potence)

Frankenstein Powers
# Nimble Feet (Basic Celerity)
# Dread Gaze (Basic Presence)
# Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
# Heightened Senses (Basic Auspex)

_____ Powers
# Devastation (Intermediate Potence)
# Quicken Sight (Intermediate Celerity)

[Or whatever the sub-headings are supposed to be called]

As a result, everyone would both have 1) all the info in one place for their character and 2) no wall of text that makes it very hard to "see" what is in a list.

I also really like the fact that this game is being organized as much on the "learning curve" and "information absorption" aspects of the game, as it is on "balance" and "creativity".

[Jacob_Orlove]

Subheadings are a really good idea. Keep all the information on the same single list (so you'd repeat some subheadings on different lists), but the extra labels would help immensely.

As someone who has played neither WoD nor Shadowrun, the lists of 7 without subheadings really do hit that "wall of text" barrier. Subheadings fix that completely.

[Username17]

For comparison, here is what the other two Prometheans would look like:

---

Golems: The Servitor
“Did I request thee, Maker from my clay
To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?”

Created strong of body and unending in endurance, the Golem is made to do tasks that humans don't want to. Often these jobs are demeaning or dangerous, and it is no surprise that Golems rarely want to do the things that are asked of them. Golems appear crude and ogrish, having been initially created for physical functionality rather than social niceties. Generally a Golem is as capable of making human emotional connections and decisions as anyone, but their distinctly non-human, even non-living appearance makes that difficult.

A Golem has an Astral power source and a Continuous power schedule.

• Vigor (Basic Potence)
• Feat of Strength (Basic Potence)
• Fire Walking (Basic Walk of Flame)
• Hide From Notice (Basic Obfuscation)
• Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
• Summon Spirit (Basic Necromancy)
• Devastation (Intermediate Potence)
• Touch of Shadow (Intermediate Obfuscation)

Story Inspiration: Rabbi Loew, R.U.R., Short Circuit, Talos

Androids: The Lover
“How fully functional are you?”

Androids are made of steel rather than flesh and they are coldly perfect to behold. Whether man or woman, an android is beautiful beyond what normal humans are capable of. Unfortunately, the metallic perfection of their exterior belies a digital corsity that makes interpersonal relationships unsatisfactory. The emotions of an Android, though strongly felt, are simply too extreme and simple for others to relate to. The love of an Android is as off-putting as the hatred to a normal, nuanced individual. Androids do not, on initial inspection look anything other than human. However there is something distinctly “not right” about them which will creep out any normal human who interacts with them socially for long. They are beyond autistic, their emotions are simply ones and zeros.

Androids can be made of circuitry, gears, or simply polished marble. The key is that at the end of the procedure they are crafted to look more human than a human could possibly be.

An Android has an Infernal power source and a Ritual power schedule.

• Vigor (Basic Potence)
• Feat of Strength (Basic Potence)
• Light of Ennui (Basic Descent of Entropy)
• Awe (Basic Presence)
• Patience of the Mountains (Basic Fortitude)
• Howling Winds (Basic Chasing the Storm)
• Devastation (Intermediate Potence)
• Contradiction (Intermediate Descent of Entropy)

Story Inspiration: Pygmalion, Metropolis, Weird Science, Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?

---

And yeah, I'm calling the power sources Infernal, Orphic, and Astral. Because that way they all use the determiner "an" granting them poetic similarity without giving them alliterative confusion.

Anyway, the thing that I'm running up against is that the Core Discipline (that is, the discipline that you get the full standard basic level of) for the Witches wants to be wholly different in each case. Something sorcerous and distinctive. They aren't going to be walking in there with the full starting level of Protean (like lycanthropes), Fortitude (like vampires) or Potence (Promethean). It's going to look more like this:

---

The Baali Tradition
“You will not remember what I show you now, and yet I shall awaken memories of love... and crime... and death... ”

The Baali Witch has an Infernal power source and a Ritual power schedule.

• Command (Basic Dominate)
• Mesmerism (Basic Dominate)
• Aura Perception (Basic Auspex)
• Hand of Flame (Basic Walk of Flame)
• Light of Ennui (Basic Descent of Entropy)
• Learn the Heart's Pain (Basic Names of the Blasphemies)
• Forgetful Mind (Intermediate Dominate)
• Fire Starter (Intermediate Walk of Flame)

The Verbana Tradition
“You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. ”

The Verbana Witch has an Astral power source and a Ritual power schedule.

• Hide From Notice (Basic Obfuscate)
• Mask of a Thousand Faces (Basic Obfuscate)
• Aura Perception (Basic Auspex)
• Rising Mists (Basic Chasing the Storm)
• Enchanted Slumber (Basic Veil of Morpheus)
• Dark Night of the Soul (Basic Trail of Tears)
• Vanish From the Mind's Eye (Intermediate Obfuscate)
• Telepathy (Intermediate Auspex)

The Khaibit Tradition
“A weapon you don't have in your hand will not kill a snake.”

Fear of darkness and death leads men to do strange things.

The Khaibit Witch has an Orphic power source and a Ritual power schedule.

• Shadow Play (Basic Obtenebration)
• Eyes of Night (Basic Obtenebration)
• Aura Perception (Basic Auspex)
• Compel Spirits (Basic Necromancy)
• Tongue of the Serpent (Basic Lure of Shadows)
• Thaumaturgical Forensics (Basic Path of Blood)
• Solid Darkness (Intermediate Obtenebration)
• Nightcry (Intermediate Necromancy)

---

-Username17

[Orion]

Why do Golems have Hide From Notice? Frankenstein's monster was a sneaky bastard, but I can't think of a sneaky golem offhand. Reb Loew's certainly wasn't.

Also, if scissorhands and Pinocchio are frankensteins, what divides androids from frankensteins?

EDIT: DUH, pinocchio and scissorhands are both made of organic matter

[Username17]

Why do Golems have Hide From Notice? Frankenstein's monster was a sneaky bastard, but I can't think of a sneaky golem offhand. Reb Loew's certainly wasn't.

I turn to wikipedia:

In some incarnations of the legend, the Maharal's Golem had superhuman powers to aid it in its tasks. These include invisibility, a heated touch, and the ability to use the Maharal's walking stick to summon spirits from the dead. This last power was often crucial, as the Golem could summon dead witnesses to testify in Prague courts.

I considered giving them Hand of Flame instead of Fire walking, but I figure that they can buy Hand of Flame with an optional power if they want. Clay only hardens when it burns and all that.

-Username17

[Orion]

Gloom

snip
- I have no idea how you get in here.

I imagine being buried alive would be a common and popular method. That lets you get creepy villains who end up there by accident, and gives the players a deliberate way to go there if they desire. Also means that the mummification process actually opens a portal to the gloom, which allows death energy to suffuse the entire pyramid while the mummified person escapes into the Gloom to bide their centuries and plot their vengeance. When the sarcophagus is first opened it contains only empty wraps, or a dessicated corpse, but the witch can return to earth and reoccupy the sarcophagus at any time.

Celephais

snip

- Three main groups:

• -Wildlife. It's full of all sorts of giant animals and strange plants. There's also rocks that move around and other strange things.
  -Fey. They live here too. Sort of like the ones from Limbo, except less like cenobites and more like the elves from Discword.
  -Dreamers. People having dreams is a big deal here, because you will see strange things happening that aren't under your control. Like giant houses appearing where you are trying to stand or giant sissors chasing people around. It's all rather surreal.

Celephais feels like it doesn't have enough stuff living in it. I realize that "fey" captures such an enormous range of concepts you can fill an entire world with nothing but fey easily, but if that's the case why not break fey down into several named groups?

Possibly distinguish "fey" or "sidhe" from "elder gods" -- one have vaguely human forms and emotions, the other are cthulhoid monstrosities. Or Sidhe from Gods, greek-style: gods desire human worship and seek to inspire humans to take on certain qualities, while sidhe care nothing for humans.

[Grek]

Ok. The three groups for Celephias are now:

-Personifications. People imagine all sorts of anthropomorphic entities who represent some concept or ideal. Examples include Zeus, Diana, Odin, Mitra, Centeotl, Amatsu-Mikaboshi and so forth. So do things like kobolds, gnomes, goblins and so forth. They are very human and have exaggerated human characterstics. Only beings which are considered to be powerful but, but not omnipotent and having human motives and human flaws are here, so Yahweh, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Ahura Mazda, Buddha and so forth explicitly are not here and you will not meet Jesus walking around preaching the gospel to Cthulhu.

- Elder things. Natives to this plane and completely inhuman. They have no concept or morality and a very different concept of time, truth, reality and distance than we do because they live in a place where thos things are aribitrary and mutable by thinking about it being different hard enough. Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath, and anything else from Lovecraft falls under this grouping. So do the Sidhe, who as basically this but humanoid looking.

-Dreamers. Same as before.

[Username17]

Do we need to split the non-playables up for each of the worlds as well? We could do that.

So then we'd have Orphic Fey (Banshee), Infernal Fey (Mirror Goblins), and Astral Fey (Sidhe). And we'd have Orphic Zombies (Soulless), Infernal Zombies (the Possessed), and Astral Zombies (Headcrabs). And so on.

It would certainly flesh out the wildlife of each of the alternate planes if there was a different flavor of evil plant native to each one. The question is really whether there's conceptual space to fit them all. And I genuinely don't know the answer to that question.

My original thought was that all Fey and Giant Animals were Astral; all Ghosts and Zombies were Orphic, and all Demons and Evil Plants were Infernal. But as things evolve, it looks like it's not working out that way. So perhaps having Astral Ghosts that are Dreamers and Astral Evil Plants that are Dryads would actually improve symmetry and make things easier to grok.

-Username17

[Grek]

Having a clear idea of what sort of things are in the outer planes besides the PCs and how they behave mechanically is a good idea.

[Orion]

It's actually not clear to me what is gained by explicitly linking the various mook types up as different manifestations of "zombie." I think each world can stand on its own, with its own organization.

I'm familiar with the argument that putting things into a structure makes them easier to remember, but I don't see the fundamental similarities between these things. I feel that in order to justify, say, the three creatures all as being "zombies" we'd have to make them more similar. Which actually ads to confusion.

"This shambling guy is powered by Maya. Not like the shambling guys from last week, who were powered by Limbo. That's why your iron bullets aren't working."

That's not something I ever want, as a DM, to have to say.

[Grek]

A Maya Zombie will be a dude with a headcrab on his head, which is quite easy to tell apart from a Limbo zombie, who is one of the demonically posessed zombies from Doom 3. They both shamble around and attack in roughly the same way, but it's easy to justify why they have different weaknesses.

Really, it is best handled by stating out a single "Zombie" creature and then having rules for what a specific subtype does to it. Same with animals, as a hellhound and a barghast are not too different aside from the fact that one is on fire and breathes fire while the other is invisible with a howl of doom.

[Orion]

Take Evil Plants though. Maybe Limbo is desolate enough to have only 2 species of evil plant. Maybe the Gloom just has one omnipresent variety. Maya needs half a dozen.

So when presented with a representative of one of the game's 9 species of threatening plant creatures, what are the odds of the player remembering which power source it has?

[Judging__Eagle]

Take Evil Plants though. Maybe Limbo is desolate enough to have only 2 species of evil plant. Maybe the Gloom just has one omnipresent variety. Maya needs half a dozen.

So when presented with a representative of one of the game's 9 species of threatening plant creatures, what are the odds of the player remembering which power source it has?

Environment dictates the monsters that appear.

We put a rider that no creature may appear in an area, unless it's suited for creatures that are powered by that type.

So, unless you've got fire, heat, burned ruins, ash, etc. you actually can't have Infernals.

Unless you're outside in an area that has living things that are not humans, like plants, or wild animals, or pets, or an animal hospital (that could be a creepy fucking place); then you won't have any creatures from the Wilds (or whatever).

Finally, you need decay, death, a funeral, a place where people commited suicide, or murder or whatever to have the death stuff showing up.

So, environment determines enemy power types; but not which specific enemies you will or could face.

Plus, an area could have mixed power types. Like a burned orphanage (fire + death), or a slaughterhouse (wilds + death), or a bunch of dumped chemicals in an abandoned lot (fire + wilds; b/c everyone knows that chemicals = flammable, or acid, which also counts as fire).

We still group monsters, but they can never show up unless the environment will support them.

Larger monsters need more severe infestations, or larger infestations.

So, the trees and lawns in the suburbs will get wolf-sized monsters at best; but if you go to the rural forested areas bear-sized or even pick-up truck sized things can show up; going into deep woods where you need to fly in a lake to get to and there are no roads has no real limit on size.

Does that work as a way to make sure that players aren't confused when they see 3 types of zombies, in three different areas, and actually can realize "shit, it's a fire zombie, bring out the hatchets and fire hose" (water vs fire?); or "omg, wilds zombie, kill it with iron!" (wilds < iron/steel, right?) or "good 'ole death zombies; time to use these Louisville sluggers" (life > death? so organic weapons > death things?).

Does that jive with people, or is it not good?

[Vnonymous]

The power source should be obvious - remember that the various power sources have effects on their own - whether they sour milk or whatever.

You don't HAVE to be able to remember what power source it has, but the power source should be obvious or logically figured out from the description of the given evil plant.

[Orion]

Hmm, I do like Iron for the wilds and silver for limbo, but it does mean the Fenris have no particular fear of silver.

[Judging__Eagle]

iron would beat them up hardcore though, so it's fair.

also, ARRRGGGHHHH.

I think that all Lycanthropes have a silver weakness though. So, the Get of Fenris can wield Klaives, while Bagthera wear leather gloves and leather outfits when holding silver blades of any size, since they have double wek wek wek.

This is difficult sometimes.